Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Just copying data? (Score 1) 243

Speaking of bitcoin, Krugman said "Bitcoin... is by design, a kind of virtual gold. And like gold, it can be mined: you can create new bitcoins, but only by solving very complex mathematical problems that require both a lot of computing power and a lot of electricity to run the computers. Hence the location in Iceland, which has cheap electricity from hydropower and an abundance of cold air to cool those furiously churning machines. Even so, a lot of real resources are being used to create virtual objects with no clear use."
In other words bitcoin mining is actually wasting electricity and adding to the carbon footprint, but not really adding value to anything. The object itself is entirely fictional and speculative. At least gold can be made into jewelry or used in electronics, what can you use bitcoin for, other than speculating on it's price?
And what I find ironic is that 200 years ago, there was no Federal Reserve, and any bank could print their own money. Yet somehow people opted to use the currency backed by the US govt. So in a sense we are mining our way back to the 17th century.

Comment Re:This is not about "wealth inequality" (Score 1) 653

"the same people who are in the streets and protesting the lack of affordable housing are the ones who will file lawsuits and protest development that provides housing." No, it's not the same people. For one thing, it's a class issue. The "liberals" who file those lawsuits, are seeking to protect their already valuable property because they like their nice 3 or 4 story town-homes for which they paid millions of dollars for. They also don't want to live next to a building full of 20-something partyers who stay up 'til 5am on Tuesday nights. The other "liberals" protesting the buses are working-class and couldn't afford to live in denser construction anyway, since any new construction in SF would only be at the high-end, like luxury condos for those techie partyers. In other words, they're not the same people. I'm sure a bunch of Wall St. investment bankers voted for Obama, which by no means implies they'd support affordable housing.

Comment Re:Hmm. (Score 1) 653

In other words, mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, and shouldn't right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed? Yet didn't the founding fathers say that when you suffer a long train of abuses and usurpations, it is our right, it is our duty, to throw off such oppression?

Comment Re:Tough luck.. (Score 1) 923

Whoever said Christianity is a religion of peace? Of course this is trite, but the biggest reason for Christianity's spread, especially among the kings and emperors of post-Roman Europe, was the fact that you could maim and kill at will in wars of conquest and still be forgiven for your sins and go to heaven. In addition, it allowed them to subjugate a mass of peasant serfs through the Church, instead of whips and chains. In other words, a religion tailor-made for the United States.

Comment They've already been sued...and won. (Score 1) 188

In 2006, the Center for Constitutional Rights sued the federal government asking a federal court for an injunction to stop warrantless wiretapping and naming George W. Bush, the head of the NSA and the heads of other intelligence agencies as defendants. The case was dismissed in June of 2013 when the court agreed with the precedent set in two other cases, which basically said that Americans don’t even have the right to sue their government over its surveillance program, unless they can prove that their communications were intercepted. In other words, you can't sue unless you can demonstrate irreparable personal harm from the spying program. Of course the NSA is never going to hand-over that information voluntarily.

Comment Re:Capitalism. (Score 1) 398

But don't you see how wonderful freedom is. The point isn't that you have to be a chemist, financial analyst, or a mechanical engineer in order to function in a free society. It's that you're free to be any or all of those things. Of course, in the real world, due to the atomized specialization of labor required to make the modern economy hum, it's ridiculous to expect an individual to posses a PhD in applied science just to function in society. That's what we pay other people to do, and why we need regulations more than ever.

Comment Re:Abandon their harmful behavior? (Score 1) 351

When you say voluntary cooperation, you mean like a treaty between states where the agree what powers they reserve to themselves and those that other states have. Something like a "constitution"? So that pollution being created in one state, and contaminating the water of another one can be addressed? Or, poor safety practices in a rendering plant in Kansas, causing people in California to get sick, or even die, can be stopped? You mean those kinds of issues should be left up to individual states? I for one, welcome the "government's" nose being involved in those things.

Comment Re:Germany sells nuclear tech to Iran (Score 2) 280

Oh, you mean "ethical and competent election officials" like those in Florida, or Alabama right? The fact is that "voter fraud" of the type you describe is a myth and in fact when someone is convicted of it, it usually involves someone with a felony conviction trying to exercise their right to vote.

" Over the past decade Texas has convicted 51 people of voter fraud, according the state's Attorney General Greg Abbott. Only four of those cases were for voter impersonation, the only type of voter fraud that voter ID laws prevent.
Nationwide that rate of voter impersonation is even lower.
Out of the 197 million votes cast for federal candidates between 2002 and 2005, only 40 voters were indicted for voter fraud, according to a Department of Justice study outlined during a 2006 Congressional hearing. Only 26 of those cases, or about .00000013 percent of the votes cast, resulted in convictions or guilty pleas. "
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/voter-fraud-real-rare/story?id=17213376

And yet I'm sure you think having to wait 3 days to purchase a lethal weapon is a burdensome and onerous infringement on your 2nd amendment rights.

Comment defense secretary? (Score 1) 279

I think the poster means Secretary of State for Defence. The difference being that unlike the American Secretary of Defense, the British secretary holds an elected
office (in the case of Philip Hammond, representing Runnymede and Weybridge), and does not need Parliamentary approval to serve. His US counterpart needs Senate confirmation to serve.

Comment Management Sucks (Score 2) 477

So on the one hand due to executive incompetence, product quality suffers, sales go down and the stock tanks, then some CXX suggest cutting down on office space and having employees telecommute to save on overhead, then due to executive incompetence and marketing/sales trumping product design and innovation, sales go down, and the stock tanks. Now they say they need employees to come in to the (now non-existent) offices, yet something tells me that it's just another example of executive incompetence resulting in poor sales, bad products and the stock tanking.

Slashdot Top Deals

The moon is made of green cheese. -- John Heywood

Working...